


Tokens

by MelyndaR



Series: Don't Fear the Fall [11]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, M/M, Polyamory, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23316481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: “Thank you for loving us enough to want this for us,” Naomi replied, leaning in to kiss Icheb.“Don’t start that again,” Quillen objected to Naomi’s surprise. “Not yet, anyway.”
Relationships: Icheb/Naomi Wildman/Q Junior, Kathryn Janeway & Q Junior
Series: Don't Fear the Fall [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552054
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... all I've done the past two days of this quarantine is write this series. Not that I regret anything, of course! I would be thrilled to get some feedback from my readers, though!

For Naomi, the next three months passed in a dizzying whirlwind of emotions, cadet training, getting to know her boyfriends, and learning how to best utilize the limited telepathy that Quillen had equipped her with. In no way did the time drag by like the previous three months had while she hadn’t been talking to the young men that she was now growing to genuinely love.

At the end of the three months, Icheb and Quillen were given one final test on the holodeck before their “graduation” from cadet training – a pinning ceremony and party in the mess hall that Naomi and Lieutenant Paris had put together with input from Captain Janeway.

“You’ll need to choose at least one more person to accompany you through the simulation,” Tuvok wrapped up his already brief explanation of the exercise at the end of the triad’s training for the day. “And choose well, because the exercise is tomorrow morning at 700 hours, so none of you will have extra time to prepare. You’ll be totally reliant upon the skills that you truly have absorbed through your training.”

“Thanks for the warning, commander.” Quillen _mostly_ managed to keep his tone from betraying his nerves.

“As I said,” Commander Tuvok fixed him with a _look_. “Your lack of special preparation is the point. I will see you tomorrow morning at holodeck one, 700 hours, not a second after. You’re all dismissed.”

“ _It’s just a bridge simulation_ ,” Naomi kept her opinions silent, speaking to her boyfriends through their bond as they walked out together. “ _We’ve done dozens – Icheb has probably done hundreds – by now_.”

“ _Since you’re so calm about it, would you want to be our third person?_ ” Quillen asked, his nervousness making his tone sharper than Naomi appreciated.

She made sure he noted her displeasure through their bond, said, “ _Sure, if that would help you stay calmer._ ”

“ _It might,_ ” Icheb agreed where Quillen was just stubborn enough not to. “ _And our telepathy would certainly give us an advantage. It might be a good idea._ ”

“Seriously?” Naomi asked aloud, speaking properly now that they were around others as they walked the halls. “ _I get the idea of our telepathy being useful, but—_ " “Would Tuvok let me, since I’m only a cadet still? I have more left to learn than you do; what if I prove to be a _dis_ advantage?”

“That would depend upon how we choose to place ourselves on the bridge,” Icheb pointed out.

“True,” Naomi murmured as Quillen added, “If Tuvok lets us choose for ourselves. What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll still do the best we can.” Icheb reached for Naomi’s hand, feeling her lingering uncertainty as he stated, “I want you there with us.”

“I second that,” Quillen said.

He took the PADDs that held her homework, then grasped her now-free hand, leaving her to walk between him and Icheb. What else could she say while their sincerity was the primary thing she felt, except, “Then I’ll be there.”

* * *

_ She had been right _ , Naomi thought when the triad stepped onto the holodeck the next morning with Commander Tuvok. This was just another simulation of _Voyager_ ’s bridge, one final test like the dozens they’d had before.

“I take it Cadet Wildman is your third participant?” the commander asked Icheb and Quillen.

“Yes, sir,” Icheb answered, ignoring the repressed tick of the Vulcan’s eyebrow that was meant to show his disapproval of bringing just another cadet into this exercise.

“And do you have a fourth participant at all?”

“No, sir.”

“Just us three,” Quillen replied brightly, his chipper tone, Naomi now understood, a frequent disguise for his unease. “The way we like it best.”

Commander Tuvok ignored that, nodding at Icheb. “Very well. I’m giving you free reign to do whatever you like,” Commander Tuvok announced, giving them the further explanation that he had denied them the day before. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking that’s going to make this any easier. Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim have set up a view screen in the briefing room, and all your instructors are going to be observing your actions as you proceed. If you learned what they’ve attempted to teach you, you’ll do well. If not, it may be ‘back to the books’ for the both of you. You are to begin as if it’s… ‘just another day’ on the bridge, but I would suggest you be flexible from there. Are your instructions clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the triad chorused.

Yet, through their bond, Quillen announced, “ _Clear as mud_ ,” and Icheb added, “ _I suppose that means we should be ready for anything._ ”

“ _That was the point, yes._ ” Naomi said.

“Well,” Quillen said as the commander left them. “I’m a command cadet first, so I guess I’ll take the helm?”

“ _Someone should_ ,” Icheb informed him, adding aloud, “I’ll keep an eye on our course,” as he went to stand where he usually would’ve on the bridge – at Seven’s screen behind and between the command chairs. 

“ _Sit there and look pretty,_ ” Quillen suggested to Naomi, swiveling in his seat to nod towards the captain’s chair.

Some anxiety-driven instinct curled uncomfortably in her stomach as she did as he’d suggested even while pointing out, “ _This isn’t good positioning for the two of us, Icheb, if something is about to go wrong._ ”

“Tests don’t tend to be this easy,” Quillen agreed grudgingly, looking at Icheb, as if for direction.

“I’m a science officer, you’re command,” Icheb replied evenly.

“With a secondary skillset in command,” Quillen pointed out. “And you’re the oldest.”

Icheb rolled his eyes at his last comment, and Naomi even scoffed, pushing herself onto her feet—just as an exterior explosion rocked their bridge. She gasped, falling backwards into the chair again as Icheb grasped the railing to stay on his feet, and Quillen toppled gracelessly from the pilot’s seat.

“What was that?!” Quillen asked sharply.

“Commander Tuvok said be _flexible_ ,” Icheb pointed out, darting to the tactical station. “We all knew that meant this was coming. Shields are up.”

“Quillen, what are we up against?” Naomi asked, going to the operations station.

“There’s a Borg cube approaching,” Quillen announced.

“ _Wonderful_ ,” Icheb thought, tension exploding behind his eyes and through his shoulders. Naomi could almost feel his headache herself as it came on. 

“ _This is all just holographic. We’ll walk out of here completely unscathed,_ ” she reminded him. Aloud, she said, “They targeted our life-support systems; life support functions are at forty percent on decks eleven and twelve.”

The holographic Borg cube fired on them again, and again their holographic bridge was rocked. A console on Quillen’s other side exploded, and Naomi tried not to think about the fact that, on the real bridge, that was the console her mother manned whenever it was needed. 

“Shields are at eighty-two percent,” Icheb said.

“ _That’s wrong_ ,” Naomi thought, not particularly for anyone’s benefit. “ _There’s a gap somewhere in the shields if they can make a console explode while the shields are at eighty-two percent._ ”

“ _Or it’s a glitch in the hologram coding_ ,” Icheb replied dismissively.

“ _Maybe,_ ” Naomi let it go when they were fired upon again.

“ _Maybe you should return fire, man!_ ” Quillen suggested sardonically, all of them falling into the easier mode of telepathic communication as they forgot about their viewers.

“ _Give me a minute,_ ” Icheb requested thoughtfully, and he was staring at his tactical screen with such concentration, moving with a steady speed that meant he had something specific on his mind.

“ _Icheb?_ ” Naomi asked.

“ _Quillen, can you get us 127 degrees to the right of the cube? And I need you to close the distance to it by half._ ”

“ _You want me to get closer to it?!_ ”

“ _You don’t trust me, above everyone except maybe Seven, to know the holes in a Borg cube’s defenses?_ ” Icheb asked, arching his eyebrows at Quillen.

Quillen drew in a deep breath and began to fly closer at an angle. 

“ _Thank you_ ,” Icheb said, turning his full attention back to the tactical screen.

“ _Are you planning on telling us what you’re doing?_ ” Naomi asked him.

“ _I’m not sure yet. Tactical isn’t my forte,_ ” he admitted.

She gave him an incredulous look as Quillen pointed out, “ _Unless you wanna swap positions, you’re our best bet._ ”

They were fired upon – Naomi had lost count, maybe it was the fourth or fifth time – and she bit back a scream as the command chairs and Seven’s screen all exploded as electrical pulses danced up them from the floor. 

“ _What the hell?!_ ” Quillen demanded.

“ _Just fly, flyboy,_ ” Naomi replied before informing the others, “ _They’re definitely targeting our controls system now. And there is definitely some sort of breach in the shields that our sensors aren’t detecting._ ”

“ _Well, our shields are down to sixty-one percent anyway, so that’s not going to matter soon,_ ” Icheb said.

“ _I’m bolstering the shields with power from all non-essential functions,_ ” Naomi announced before she switched the screen outputs so that Icheb could see all the information where he stood. 

“ _What are you doing?_ ” he demanded as she left the operations station and ducked into the corner she often shared with Lieutenant Torres whenever she was on the bridge.

“ _What I do best_ ,” she answered shortly. “ _You use what you know against these guys, and I’ll do the same._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Icheb, whatever you’re doing, we’re in position for it,_ ” Quillen told him.

“ _If my scans of the cube are right, they have a weakened panel on the underside of their ship that wouldn’t have become visible yet, so if I can target that—_ ”

“ _And I can keep them from exploiting this… holographic glitch or whatever it is I’m looking for—_ ” Naomi added.

“ _—Then we should be set,_ ” Quillen finished cheerfully. “ _Boom, bang, bye-bye, Borg._ ” 

Icheb rolled his eyes again. “ _You could put it that way, yes._ ”

Then they were fired upon again, multiple times in rapid succession, and Icheb declared, “ _Shields are down, and we’re losing life support on decks three through ten!_ ”

“ _Are you kidding me?!_ ” Naomi snapped, her worry over the glitch forgotten as she turned her attention to a much bigger problem. “ _Damn, damn, damn… This isn’t even supposed to be_ my _test, and they’re handing out operations issues like this?!_ ” She pulled up Icheb’s operations station information so that it was side by side with her engineering information, saying, “ _You two focus on keeping them off our tail, okay? I’ll… attempt to make sure nobody suffocates or freezes to death around here._ ”

Freed now to focus on the cause of their problems while she handled the effects from them, Icheb agreed, “ _Sounds good_ ,” and began to make the best use of tactical while Quillen did his best to hold their position when Naomi suspected his helm controls were starting to fray alongside everything else.

“ _I made a mistake,_ ” she realized. “ _I shouldn’t have rushed to put the power from all non-essentials into the shields. Icheb…_ ”

“ _Take what you need,_ ” he said, though she saw him take a deep breath and brace for a rougher fight. “ _Pouring power into broken shields may not be as helpful as I’d like it to be, and we have to keep people alive._ ” 

Given his assent, she adjusted the power output percentages, followed her gut and began to run a remote scan on their warp core, as well as scans on the sections of shielding surrounding the bridge. Then she put out an in-this-case-fake dispatch of repair crews on the affected decks. 

“ _I’ll give you this, Icheb, tactical may not be your forte, but you’re a good shot,_ ” she spared a thought to inform her boyfriend as she worked.

“ _Probably a side-effect from having weaponry as part of my body for a while,_ ” Icheb suggested dryly. “ _You get pretty good at using it, with a little practice._ ”

Quillen snorted a laugh at one of Icheb’s rare and off-beat jokes.

“ _But, no,_ ” Icheb continued with an objection. “ _I’m not that good. I still haven’t gotten the shot I need._ ”

“ _Do we torpedo it?_ ” Quillen asked.

Icheb checked the ops information that he could still see, looking probably at how things were holding up outside the bridge on this holographic _Voyager_. “ _Not yet_. _Can you line us up two more degrees to the right?_ ”

“ _Two more—are you kidding? If they hit our controls one more time, my helm control is gone, and you’re asking for specifics like—_ ” 

“ _He’s doing calculations in his head, like we all are,_ ” Naomi realized as she said it. “ _If he needs two more degrees, can you give it to him, or no?_ ”

Quillen swallowed the rest of his incredulous complaint and turned back to his controls.

There were twenty more tense seconds before Icheb fired a volley of shots at the Borg cube, and it exploded from the bottom up, much as the command chairs had on their own bridge. Icheb released a deep sigh, sagging forward a little in relief as Quillen whooped with joy. 

Icheb laughed, turning to look at Quillen as he praised, “Good flying, flyboy.”

“Good shooting, science officer,” Quillen returned.

“You’re both wonderful,” Naomi said, “But I still have people floating around without gravity on deck seven, so if anyone would like to do anything to help me over here, I would appreciate it.”

“Sorry, flying,” Quillen said, sounding not at all apologetic. It was well-known that he hated engineering, and anything to do with _Voyager_ ’s “boring” systems.

Icheb, on the other hand, gave his consoles one more thorough looking-over before he joined her, his hand on the back of her chair as he drew circles on the back of her neck with his thumb. “How can I help?”

“What are the results of the scans on the warp core and shields?”

Icheb looked in surprise at the scans that she’d started mid-fight, reporting, “The warp core’s fine; Quillen was definitely struggling with helm controls because of a disconnect in the systems, not a problem with the core itself.”

“ _Then the good news is that we found the one thing that doesn’t need repaired._ ”

He gave her an amused side-eye that told her he appreciated her sarcasm, even though he understood why she’d kept it between the three of them. “This section of the shields, however… shows a spot that was left unrepaired since the last attack on the ship.”

She looked up fake ship’s logs before commenting, “The last attack was supposedly three days ago, meaning no one’s had to do a full report on it yet, so the remaining damage hadn’t been caught before it was able to be exploited.”

“ _Great,_ ” Quillen replied dryly.

“ _Don’t be that guy,_ ” Naomi said. “ _We’re all human…oids. Mistakes happen._ ”

“So, it wasn’t a glitch in the hologram, it was on purpose,” Icheb observed.

“Sounds like it,” Naomi answered. “Lieutenant Paris and Commander Tuvok created this program; they’re not likely to leave room for errors like that.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate your praise,” an unfamiliar voice, dripping with sarcasm came from the direction of the command chairs, and all three of them whirled towards the intruders.

A man and a woman in red and black Star Fleet uniforms were sitting in the now-perfect command chairs. 

Icheb and Naomi both began to demand who they were, how they’d gotten in, and what they were doing here, but Quillen beat them to it, asking incredulously, “Dad, _Mom_? What _the hell_ do you want?”


	3. Chapter 3

Quillen surged to his feet, far more wariness in every line of his body than Naomi had ever seen before, and his thoughts and emotions were suddenly in such a tangle that she couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

“Now, Junior, don’t be like that,” the man said, standing languidly to his feet.

“It’s been so long since we last saw you; aren’t you going to give Mother a kiss?” the woman asked him.

“No!” he spat at her, before turning to the man who had to have been his father, Q, with finger pointed as he said, “And that’s not my name. I’m not your _Junior_ anymore.”

“ _Is this part of the test?_ ” Naomi asked quietly. “ _More holograms?_ ”

“Oh, no,” Q turned to her, his smile both bright and somehow cruel all at once. “This is very real. See?”

With a snap of his fingers, the holographic _Voyager_ disappeared from around them, leaving the gray holodeck walls in its’ place with the five of them standing very real and present inside it.

Realizing he’d just read her thoughts – _plugged himself into the triad’s telepathy somehow?_ – Naomi glanced at Icheb, worried about how he would handle the unexpected intrusion into his mind even as she did her best to deliberately stop thinking coherent thoughts.

Panic flared in Icheb’s mind, but he did his best to visibly reign it in, taking a deep breath, once, twice, as Naomi reached for his hand and held it tightly.

Quillen glanced at Icheb and Naomi, clearly checking on Icheb. He was also gauging their reactions as he completely shut down their telepathic link for the first time in over three months – and Naomi had no idea how long it had been a constant in Icheb’s mind, at that. She blinked, her only concession to her surprise at the sudden, echoing feeling in the back of her mind, and Icheb’s hand tightened painfully around hers as Quillen turned back to his parents.

“What do you _want_?” he demanded again.

“We just wanted to see your little Star Fleet graduation,” Q said, taking a step towards his son. “Aren’t parents allowed?”

Quillen backed up the same distance his father had taken towards him, a hand raised in objection.

“Not really.” Captain Janeway answered the question as she came into the holodeck with Commanders Tuvok and Chakotay, and Seven of Nine. Her voice was hard as diamonds, but Naomi and Icheb both relaxed to hear it.

Commander Tuvok remained by the door, Seven came to stand between the Q and Icheb and Naomi, Commander Chakotay went to Quillen, and Captain Janeway got directly into Q’s face, angry enough that the height difference between them truly didn’t matter. “Why are you on my ship? We had a _deal_ , Q.”

“Believe me, Kathy, the custody arrangement isn’t about to be touched – there’s no going back from things like that.”

“But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been keeping an eye on our son from a distance,” Mrs. Q said. “And he’s gone through some big changes recently, so we just wanted to check in.”

“Well, I don’t want you here!” Quillen snapped before Commander Chakotay could put a calming, yet restraining hand on his arm.

Captain Janeway glanced at the boy – _her son,_ she’d told Naomi as much a few months ago – with a look that was meant to have the same affect on him before she turned back to his parents. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“Did he pass his little test, or not?” Q demanded impatiently.

“Yes, not that you’re impressed by that, so I’ll spare you the details he’ll hear later. A ‘little Star Fleet graduation’ wouldn’t bring you here, so what does?”

Q sighed at her, clearly displeased by how little “fun” she was being as he admitted, “The Council is worried about the bloodline of its Continuum.”

“I beg your pardon?” the captain asked with a moment of genuine bafflement.

“The other _change_ that Junior has gone through recently,” Mrs. Q spoke up. “Is the addition of a virile mate into his life.”

“ _What_?” Naomi snapped, very much aloud, before she caught herself. _They were here because of her?_

“I _promise_ you,” Quillen spoke up before anyone else could begin to. “That whatever may or may not come from our being together will _never_ have anything to do with you or the Continuum. I think I would _actually die_ before I let _any_ of the children aboard _Voyager_ be exposed to your level of bullshit and abuse, honestly.”

“We’re trying to help you, sweetheart,” Mrs. Q began again. “Trying to still do one good thing as parents here. It’s bad enough, disgusting enough, that your disgracing your body with another man, but this… surely you understand that this—this _triad_ of yours – and with someone like her,” she waved a dismissive hand in Naomi’s direction, a snarl on her face. “Is… _beyond_ disgusting, and it won’t work, and you’re setting yourself up for heartbreak, and to be relegated to some point _beyond_ irredeemable in the eyes of the Council, besides.”

“What happens,” Commander Tuvok asked suspiciously, from his place near the door. “To Q who become ‘beyond irredeemable in the eyes of the Council?’”

“They’re about to banish you from our sights, my baby boy,” Mrs. Q pled with her child now, but the plea fell on deaf ears. “And if they do that, we—well, your father and I won’t be able to watch over you, anymore. Those little bumps and bruises all the other crewmembers get from time to time that you never seem to? Have you even noticed that? That was us –” she glanced heatedly at her husband, amending, “Mostly me – protecting you. And the Council is going to take that ability away from us. We won’t even be able to see you anymore.”

Quillen’s mouth ticked upward, as did Captain Janeway’s as she surmised, “So, you’re afraid of losing your last ounce of control over him. That’s what this is.”

“This sounds like a good thing to me, Mother,” Quillen bit out.

“Come on, Junior, be reasonable!” Q tried. “All you have to do is disown your little sex toys, and—”

Quillen twisted away from Commander Chakotay’s grasp, going to stand directly beside the captain – very much in his father’s face – as he ordered, “Get. Off. This. Ship. I do not ever want to see you again. Tell the Council they can throw me as far out of the sight of other Qs as they want, and don’t come anywhere near me, or my people, or this ship _ever_ again.” He waited a beat, presumably for his parents to snap themselves out the way they’d gotten themselves in, and when they didn’t, he shouted, “ _Leave_!”

“You’re making a mistake,” Q informed him, a darkness falling across his face that made Naomi stiffen, readying to have to fight for Quillen somehow.

Seven brushed a gentle hand across her back, a reminder to stay in place, but the Borg’s hand ended up wrapping around Naomi’s wrist, just in case.

“Let’s go,” Mrs. Q suddenly bid her husband, and Naomi was about to give her a little credit mentally, as there was a real thread of something sad in her tone. Until there wasn’t, while she declared with another snarl towards Naomi, “She’ll be in the arms of someone else soon enough.”

 _Never_ , Naomi thought vehemently, but she was diplomatic enough to bite her tongue.

Her movement proved almost unnecessary when Q and Mrs. Q snapped themselves out of the room just as easily as they’d entered it.

Captain Janeway’s arms were around Quillen the moment they were gone, and as Naomi ran to him with Icheb, she realized that the captain was at least partially holding him upright as he leaned into her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asked, taking his hand.

He nodded tiredly, still leaning into the captain, into the mother that he clearly preferred over his biological parents these days.

“Long day, love?” Icheb asked, taking Quillen’s free hand… and covertly checking his pulse.

“Well, I mean we did just defeat the Borg and my parents in, what, fifteen minutes?”

“Something like that,” Captain Janeway murmured.

“Quillen, can you look at me?” Icheb requested, searching the young Q’s face seriously. _He didn’t like the dazed look in their boyfriend’s face anymore than Naomi did, then._

“I’m fine,” Quillen gave Icheb a tired smile as he began to realize what he was doing. “Really, I’m fine, just exhausted.”

“The Borg and your parents in the same fifteen minutes is a really big deal,” Commander Chakotay agreed as he came over to them.

“Do you feel weak in any other way?” Icheb pressed. “Faint? Dizzy? Like maybe they did something to you while they were here?”

Quillen shook his head. “It’s just… a lot to reign in my powers like that, suddenly, and the telepathy doesn’t really work like it was originally supposed to in Qs. It just… I’m sick to my stomach, that’s all, like I ingested too much sugar, except I played around with my powers more than I usually do.”

“And you’re exhausted,” Icheb pointed out.

“Aren’t you too?”

“I didn’t just go through an emotional rollercoaster with my origins like you did.”

Naomi shot him a “ _yeah, right, because that wasn’t what fighting the Borg is for you,_ ” across their nonexistent telepathic link before she’d even thought twice.

Quillen snorted, understanding what the look on her face meant even without the telepathy to tell him. “I just really need to sit down, guys, and I’ll be fine, I promise,” he tried one more time to soothe their worries. “And I want to know how we did on our test, Aunt Kathy,” he requested belatedly.

“Computer, engage a site to site transport for all present to the briefing room,” Captain Janeway ordered.


	4. Chapter 4

“What the hell happened in there?” Lieutenant Torres was asking before the site-to-site transport was even fully finished.

“My parents,” Quillen announced flatly, half-falling into a chair beside Lieutenant Paris.

The lieutenant and the Doctor both narrowed their eyes at him, reaching towards him the moment they got a good look at him, but Quillen waved them away, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back against the too-short headrest.

“He says he’s fine,” Icheb informed both men, but the look in his eyes and the way he was pressing his lips into a thin line said he was still nervous for his boyfriend.

“What did they want?” Lieutenant Torres asked sharply. “Why come _now_?” The “after all this time” was left blessedly unsaid.

“They said they wanted to see Quillen’s ‘graduation,’” the captain began to explain, talking with her hands in her irritation as she spoke aloud. “Which was the smoke screen with them – there’s always a smoke screen with them. What it boiled down to was that the Council is threatening to take away their last bit of control over Quillen, and they were trying to convince him to do the necessary thing to stop that from happening.”

“What control?” Lieutenant Paris asked.

“Not control exactly,” Quillen spoke up. “But the Q are pretty well all-seeing when they want to be, so my parents have been keeping an eye on me even though we haven’t been interacting. The Council disapproves of some recent life decisions I’ve made, and they probably think my choices will affect the thought processes of my parents, and eventually mess up the way thing have always been done in the Continuum. So, they want me to… excise from my life the things they don’t approve of, so I don’t pollute Continuum ideas, or they’re going to make it so that my parents can’t see me. Which, by the way, I, for one, am completely okay with.”

“You’ve been doing great, though,” Ensign Wildman spoke up indignantly. “What on earth don’t they approve of?”

Quillen chuckled under his breath, giving her a small, grateful smile, before he dragged the palms of his hands over his eyes, then put his head down on the table, definitely not answering her question.

“Me,” Naomi volunteered after a second of silence.

“For the record,” Quillen lifted his head from the tabletop, taking a deep breath and attempting to regain a normal posture as he looked between Icheb, Naomi, and her mother. “They don’t approve of my being with Icheb, either. You have to understand, the Q have been around since the beginning of time itself; they have _very_ ancient ideals about some things. Icheb is wrong for me because he is, first off, a male as I am, and, secondly, he’s Brunali, which I’m not, and he’s also—” Quillen rolled his eyes, his frustration clear in his tone and expression. “Gods keep us all from being infected by nanoprobes – a former Borg.” He rubbed his eyes again. “I’m sorry, I just… have a lot of feelings about it. I heard a lot about it before I moved here, and now…” he chuckled darkly. “Now, they have the gall to come aboard this ship and start complaining about the Q _bloodline_ , which, for one thing, I won’t really be adding to, as I’m not part of the Continuum any longer. Any children I have will have Q blood, yes, but it won’t mean anything because _hopefully_ my children will never encounter the Continuum, and they certainly won’t have powers from it, except for _maybe_ telepathy. No one, here at least, knows because it’s not happened yet.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” the captain complained. “Why did they decide to care about cross-species relations _now_?”

“Because they can.” Quillen sighed tiredly. “The Council has been looking for a reason to get rid of me – entirely – for a very long time. They’ve figured out they can procreate among themselves, so they _can_ be prejudice against other species invading their way of life, so they _will_ be prejudice. It is as simple and as stupid as that.

“They’ll protect species, but as soon as they don’t suit their purposes for fun and entertainment, they don’t want to interact with them, and they certainly don’t want to… intermix with them. So, because I’ve chosen to do exactly that – twice over now – they’ve decided that really is enough, and they don’t even want to see my face anymore. Which I am even _happy_ to hear.” He looked across the table, to where Naomi was standing beside her mom, with a gaze that pierced straight through to her thoughts as he added, “It really is okay as long as we say it is. One more parental hissy fit, no matter how unexpected, is nothing, okay?”

Naomi nodded, giving him a smile that meant she believed him. And she did… his parents’ bigotry just wasn’t what was bothering her.

Quillen twisted in his chair to look behind him, to where Icheb was standing as he repeated, “Okay?”

Icheb put a hand on Quillen’s shoulder, squeezing gently as he parroted, “Okay.”

“Now.” Quillen folded his hands on the table, sitting up straight despite the tiredness that he was clearly trying to shake from his expression as he turned to the captain and asked grandly, “About that test, how’d we do, captain?”

Captain Janeway crossed her arms over her chest, looking at the three cadets individually before she glanced at Commander Tuvok, making sure they were on the same page before she announced, “You both passed. Operationally, strategically, as it related to the ship, you both did fantastic jobs. There will be official reports given to you by the end of the week, detailing mine and Commander Tuvok’s opinions on the events of the test, and on the things you still need to finetune going forward.

“However,” here she included Naomi in her gaze now, and the triad winced almost as one, they were certain enough they knew where she was going with this. “In practice, we have almost no idea how you communicate with your crew, and as cadets who both want to end up on a command track, that is dangerously close to unacceptable under these circumstances. I understand that the three of you have telepathic abilities with one another, more power to you to use them _at the appropriate times_ , but now was not that time. Honestly, your teacher’s opinion on telepathy in the workplace,” she nodded vaguely towards Commander Tuvok. “Is the only thing standing between you and redo of that test. That being said, we all know you, we all know you’re capable of passing this test, and so you will, because your actions speak for themselves and say that you should. However, your scores will _have_ to reflect your lack of public communication. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” both boys chorused.

Then Quillen asked again, hopefully, “But we passed?”

Captain Janeway nodded, a proud smile playing at the edges of her mouth as she nodded. “You passed. Congratulations, ensigns.”


	5. Chapter 5

The next evening found Naomi curled up on the couch in the Wildman’s quarters with her _ensign_ boyfriends, of which she was very proud. Her mother was covering the shift of an ill crewmember, so the triad had the place to themselves.

“Your mother,” Quillen declared with a chuckle. “Is a far more trusting person than Aunt Kathy.”

“My mother chooses to see the best in you, where your mother sees the reality of you,” Naomi shot back with a smile.

“Hey!” he objected – before stealing a kiss and effectively nullifying his flimsy defense while proving her point.

“Actually, she just knew that we were planning on reinstating our link tonight, and she wanted to give us space to… check over it without feeling like we had to converse aloud for her sake.”

“We could’ve just reinstated it last night after the pinning ceremony and party,” Quillen pointed out. “With no need for a special meeting for it.”

“You mean you didn’t want to come see me tonight?” Naomi was making a joke at first, but a thought flashed through her mind at the end of it that made her catch herself nearly frowning.

“And besides, Quillen,” Icheb said practically. “You needed more time to rest last night, but we’re here now, so quit whining and get on with it if you’re going to be that impatient.”

In the split second before she felt the familiar presences in the back of her mind, Naomi tried to clear her troubling thoughts from her head, but she hadn’t been fast enough.

“Naomi?” Icheb asked, looking suddenly troubled for her. “What’s going on?”

She shrugged, only barely answering his question as she allowed herself to focus on examining the links between the three of them, making sure everything felt like she was used to. “We’ve all had a rough past couple of days. You worse than me, from what I can feel.”

“I never sleep well on nights that the Borg factor into our days; you know that by now,” he brushed off her observation. “I’m over that part. And I’m over Q and Mrs. Q.”

“Are you?” Quillen asked her carefully, noticeably studying her emotions now, trying to pinpoint what she was feeling, and what was bothering her.

She looked away from them, towards the art pieces that had hung on the walls of her home since before she was born. “Yeah. I’ve gotten used to people throwing stones at me over the years. It… doesn’t get under my skin as easily now.”

“That’s good,” Icheb noted. “But that’s also not what is bothering you, is it?”

Naomi bit her lip, not sure how to answer him.

“This is about what my mother said before they left.” Quillen pinpointed what Naomi wouldn’t voice. “About you being with someone else. Beautiful, that’s stupid, and she probably said for exactly this purpose – for no other reason than to get under your skin. Icheb was your _first crush_ , and now look at the two of you! I’m the only other person you’ve ever loved, right?”

She nodded as he took her hand, and Icheb pulled her to him, her head resting above his heart, given the way they were tangled together on the couch.

“And now look at us,” Quillen demanded steadily. “Unless there’s something we don’t know about you—”

“—Which is very unlikely at this point, given our telepathy,” Icheb pointed out.

“—My mother was just spinning her wheels, trying to find something to say that would hurt you while serving her purpose. That’s what she struck upon… but that doesn’t mean that you have to let her win. You don’t have to let it work, and you don’t have to let her get under your skin. Icheb and I know you would never do that to us.” Feeling her start to relax as his words soaked in, Quillen asked, “Do you wanna know why?”

“Why?” she asked, feeling one of his jokes coming on, and willing to let him try to cheer her.

“Because we’re just too good, beautiful. There’s no single man or woman that will ever best your boyfriends in bed. Just doesn’t exist.”

Naomi chuckled, turning her face into Icheb’s chest to hide the oncoming blush that she knew Quillen found adorable. Quillen reached out, brushing her hair behind her ear as he leaned in close and asked in a whisper, “Would it cheer you up if we proved it?”

* * *

Somehow, by some miracle of a science that Naomi didn’t understand, the three of them managed to fit in her bed without breaking it. She assumed it was mostly because she was using Icheb as a second mattress of sorts underneath her by the time they were finished.

The ex-drone laughed, asking, “Quillen, now can you agree that Ensign Wildman is a little too trusting of us?”

“No,” Quillen shot back saucily. “We are well within our boyfriend rights here, thank you very much.”

Icheb took a deep breath, stretching as much as he could with his girlfriend functioning as a blanket on top of him. “I’ve been thinking, what if… I didn’t want ‘boyfriend rights?’”

Naomi rolled so that she was face to face with him, elbowing him in the gut in the process as she asked sharply, “What?!”

Icheb coughed raggedly, trying to catch the breath that she’d knocked out of him as Quillen sat up, already shaking his head. “No, Naomi, no. That’s _not_ what he means. What _we_ mean,” he began to explain, a small smile on his face as if he found this funny. “Is…” he faltered, and even though Icheb had mostly caught his breath by now, both he and Naomi waited for Quillen to finish. “What are we doing here?” the Q asked her after a moment.

She glanced around her bedroom, remarking, “I thought that was fairly obvious.”

“Not _that_ ,” Quillen said. “Why are the three of us… together?”

Naomi blinked at him. “Because we love each other. Don’t we?”

Feeling her earlier uncertainty start to rear it’s head again, he reached for her hand, agreeing, “Of course we do. And if we love each other, really love each other…”

Here he glanced at Icheb, and this time, Icheb picked up where Quillen left off. “There’s a tradition in Brunali culture—Can I sit up, please?”

She wriggled her hands behind his back, laid her head back down on his shoulder, and decreed, “No.”

“Naomi!” he protested, absolutely no venom in his tone as he chuckled at her.

He ran hand through her hair as she requested without budging, “Tell me about your tradition?”

“Well, I was going to show you,” he informed her. “There’s something in my uniform jacket I need. In the inside pocket. Can you get it for me, Quillen?”

Quillen looked at Icheb, feigning being put out at the request, and, in wordless reply, Icheb gestured to Naomi, who was grinning triumphantly at Quillen and still not moving.


	6. Chapter 6

Grinning despite the resignation he was trying to portray, Quillen stood, putting on his boxers and pants before he turned to kiss first Naomi, then Icheb. “You’re both spoiled,” he informed them before making his way into the main room where Quillen and Icheb had both left their jackets.

“Icheb?” Quillen called a moment later, before he turned the corner back into Naomi’s bedroom with a bronze bracelet in each hand. His tone was laced with uncertainty as he held one up, asking, “What’s this?”

“You know what it is,” Icheb replied calmly, waving Quillen closer. “I was under the impression that what’s good for the proverbial goose is good for the gander.”

This was important, Naomi realized that much based off Quillen’s blossoming nerves alone, and she moved off Icheb so that she could sit up, allowing him to do the same.

“Thank you,” Icheb murmured, kissing her hair as he sat up, then stood to get dressed.

“I, for one, feel gross,” Naomi admitted. “So, Quillen, you two discuss whatever he’s got that’s making you freak out; I’ll get you both something to clean up with, then I’m taking a quick sonic shower. I’ll be right back.”

Unhappy at this turn of events, Icheb watched her go.

“ _I’m not ‘freaking out,’_ ” Quillen objected belatedly.

Naomi ignored the remark, giving them both wet cloths and lazy, reassuring kisses before she stepped into the sonic shower alone.

She was, and had probably always been a studier, a researcher of anything and everything that caught her attention – including Brunali culture. By now, they all knew she knew what those bracelets were, and they made nervous excitement dance along her nerves as she washed off. She took her time, though, keyed into her boyfriends’ emotions like an eavesdropper would be on a conversation, and she didn’t turn off the shower until she felt Quillen calm, wrapped in the peaceful contentment of knowing he was loved, understanding whatever it was that Icheb was trying to say here.

“You’re thinking way too loud in there,” Quillen complained at the bathroom door as she was finishing getting dressed.

“ _Then maybe I should think way too loud out here, then_ ,” she replied as she swung the bathroom door open and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his nose. He wrinkled his nose at the ticklish feeling, and she laughed, noting to herself that he was wearing one of Icheb’s bracelets now. “ _Okay_ ,” she moved to sit primly on the edge of her bed, looking at Icheb. “ _I’m ready now. What’s the bracelet?_ ”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “ _You know what it is, don’t you?_ ”

“ _I think so,_ ” she admitted. “ _But I want to know what it means to you._ ”

“ _To pick up where we left off,_ ” he began, sitting beside her. “ _If the three of us love each other like I think we do, is it terribly presumptuous of me to offer you both tokens of intent?_ ” As soon as he’d asked the question, he was rushing to add, “ _I’m very aware we’re all young in our different, each strange, ways; these aren’t engagement rings, as humans have, they’re…_ ” yet he drew up short in trying to draw a comparison.

“ _Like old-fashioned human promise rings,_ ” Quillen supplied. “ _Or at least the intent is the same._ ”

Naomi reached for Icheb’s hand, squeezing it to help calm him as she informed him with a smile, “ _I would love that._ ”

He relaxed, releasing a breath of air as he began to breathe normally again, a broad smile overtaking his face as he opened the clasp on the bracelet and put it on her wrist. “ _Thank you._ ”

“ _Thank you for loving us enough to want this for us,_ ” she replied, leaning in to kiss him.

“ _Don’t start that again,_ ” Quillen objected to Naomi’s surprise. “ _Not yet, anyway._ ” Icheb broke off their kiss, glancing at Quillen with an irritation that made Naomi chuckle as Quillen sat on Icheb’s other side and asked, “ _So… you know how my parents really ticked me off yesterday, and made me even more stubborn about how much I love you two?_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Icheb replied.

“ _And you know how we haven’t been telepathically linked for the past twenty-four hours, and how I knew you were planning this – well, at least for her – Icheb?_ ”

“ _Yes._ ”

Quillen reached into the pocket of his command team jacket, then showed Icheb and Naomi what he’d been keeping there. “ _I took advantage of your not being… literally in my thoughts and replicated them last night. Promise rings. The equivalent of the Brunali tokens – not at all to overshadow, Icheb, just—_ ”

“ _I know,_ ” Icheb soothed him with a smile. “ _I can see your thoughts again, remember?_ ”

“ _Equal to Icheb’s tokens, but different,_ ” Naomi remarked approvingly. “ _Like we’re equals to each other, while being different from one another._ ”

“ _So, this is okay?_ ” Quillen asked, nervousness that he had no reason to feel still on the edges of his tone.

“ _Of course it is,_ ” Naomi promised, reaching across Icheb for one of the silver rings.

Quillen gently tapped the back of her hand in rebuke, asking, “ _Won’t you let me do the honors?_ ”

“ _Drama king,_ ” Naomi accused, but she was still grinning as he put her ring on her, then put Icheb’s on him. She smiled, looking down at the ring and bracelet where they now both adorned her left side, until she bit her lip, thinking.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Icheb chided.

At the same time, Quillen declared, “ _That’s the point of surprises, sweetheart._ ”

Both as Naomi began to think, “ _But I don’t have anything to give you two._ ”

“ _And don’t try to figure something out because you feel like you have to,_ ” Icheb added. “ _I think this is something that you figure out when the time is right for you,_ and _those you love. Don’t try and push your way into an idea, or it’ll lose some of it’s meaning, and then you’ll grow to hate the idea of something you’ve tried to do as a nicety._ ”

“ _He’s right,_ ” Quillen seconded Icheb’s – their closeted romantic’s – statement.

“ _Okay._ ” Naomi leaned into Icheb again, kissing him on the cheek as she took Quillen’s hand. “ _I love you both._ ”

“ _And we love you_ ,” they reminded her.


End file.
